Twenty percent of the vote was based upon their style in casual clothes, 20 percent of the vote was based upon their grace while walking in a swimsuit, 20 percent was based upon their looks in an evening dress and the final 40 percent was based upon the competence of answers they gave when questioned by the judicial panel.
21-year-old Eliana Nehme from Lebanon won.
But what the heck was hijab-clad Noura Zeindine doing in a beauty pageant? If she's religiously conservative enough to wear a hijab, she should have no interest in entering a beauty pageant. Yes, she was covered from head to toe in variations of black, but still. I found that very bizarre.
You can see her towards the back in the picture below (right behind the LBC logo), and you can also watch her dancing towards the back in the video on Al Arabiya.
In case you want to watch the whole programme.
2 comments:
:)
First, thanks for even posting this story...I saw it mentioned on another site, and chose to Google the winner's name, Eliana Nehme....under "News" there were ZERO results. Just website/blog searches led me to almost-as-dire results, until I found your post.
So thank you for posting it!!
My only reaction was to the author's opinion regarding a contestant who wore a hijab.
"But what the heck was hijab-clad Noura Zeindine doing in a beauty pageant? If she's religiously conservative enough to wear a hijab, she should have no interest in entering a beauty pageant.
While YES I do agree that wearing the all-black hijab will (by default) obliterate chances at winning, since scores relied on swimsuits, evening wear, etc.
HOWEVER, the fact that Lebanon, a country OPPRESSED enough to advocate hijabs at all, actually HELD a plus-size beauty pageant is remarkable.
The hijab-wearing contestant likely was simply showing support for the recognition --curves CAN be sexy and therefore (while not showing HER curves) showed her support just by attending. I applaud her :)
Hi Dara,
while I too applaud the fact that they even dared to hold a beauty pageant in a region that, for the most part, frowns on women who don't cover up-and in some cases forbids it and punishes women that don't- I find a woman who wears a hijab competing in a beauty contest exceedingly hypocritical. If she is open enough to compete, why wear a hijab at all?
I like to point out the hypocrisy.
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